build a line challenge

What can I say. I joined and I DID IT! My Jewelry line is very whimsical, not serious, colorful, and in various styles. I have to say this has been fun and educational. I did make 5 pieces plus. If you haven’t noticed through out my Blog I really enjoy making jewelry and playing with polymer clay.

I added ring dishes to the line. This was one way to use scrap clay and make an accessory for jewelry to my line. The ring dishes are evolving into my own look. The only challenge with these is centering them upon the form and making sure they are even. So with artistic creative licence I am making Whimsical ring dishes. This way I don’t stress over having it perfect. With vision issues it is not possible. LOL! Check out the ring dishes at the end of the blog.

Well we started out this challenge with beetle’s running all over my worktable, This is the final Blog Hop of B’Sue Boutiques Challenge of creating a 5 piece jewelry line or more. I have found my artistic voice in this challenge all my jewelry pieces look like they go together, made by the same artist. I never knew how to make a line make it cohesive through this process with Brenda Sue, my mentor and group interactions I have been able to make my own jewelry line. Part of my line maybe a limited edition I am not sure yet. Still mulling over that part of my jewelry line. I would like to thank Brenda for teaching us and thank the rest of the group for all their support in this venture. I now even more ideas then ever on making further lines.

Walking you through my creative process in my decisions on making what I did and how I ended up with branches or off shoots of other lines. I started out with my beetles in two sizes. The small charm beetles would be accents to my earrings, smaller pendants or brooches. Giving a hint of the beetles with a more subtle look. The larger beetle needed a body added. As I like to mix Polymer clay with my jewelry the addition of imitation simulated agates and turquoise did the trick.

So with this beetle designed decided I needed to figure out how or what to put the beetles on. Rings where an easy decision. Take a look below …..

They have imitation agates and turquoise along with polymer clay patterned canes beetle rings mounted on quality brass . Then I made some with copper ring blanks and the imitation turquoise. Flower rings are part of another line that ties back to the beetle line. As I have added flowers in both lines. You will also find a very high quality silver rings Every Ring is unique with their own personality.

Next are earrings and I created several styles in the Love Beetle Rocks line and the other part of the line I used flowers and spoon earrings.

Beetle earrings different styles. But I can see more designs in the future.This is how I started incorporating the flowers into my other line.

The flowers led to a sub-line with beetles and flowers.

Here it goes with my SUB-LINES FIRST AND THE THE BEETLE ROCKS LINE AT THE END

My Love Beetle Flower sub-line consists of:

Spoon Necklace beetles

Spoon Flower earrings

Flower beetle brooch

Small flower beetle necklace

Charm dangle Necklace

Flower Spoon Necklace

Flower Rings and Flower earrings

So the next part of the line was making flower jewelry with Pink and Copper. I felt this was another addition as to I had used copper in my The Beetle Rocks line and Flowers.

Pink Copper sub-line is so pretty. I love the combination of the two colors. This consists so far of.

Larger Focal Necklaces

Medium size Focal flower Necklace

2 5/8″ Spoon earrings with flowers and brooches

The second part of my line The Love Beetle Rocks is my imitation simulated turquoise an d copper. This is a big hit as the turquoise made by me with polymer clay looks very real.

The copper Turquoise jewelry pieces consist of….

Cameo Pendants in Black with copper highlights and in a copper setting.

Copper bracelets with imitation simulated turquoise cameo

Copper bracelets with imitation simulated turquoise beetles

Copper rings with nugget imitation simulated turquoise

aqua copper brooches , earrings to come

Now for the LOVE BEETLE ROCKS New Jewelry Line

I made the imitation simulated agates with polymer clay. I made them into various sizes of cameos. The Line consists of:

bracelets

cameo in 2 sizes necklaces with beetle accent charms Necklaces are in Silver and antique brass

rings are silver and antique brass beetles.

small dangle beetle earrings

different styles of leaf beetle necklaces in several color choices

Some of the beetle bodies also consist of Natasha style bead bodies.

brooches

earrings

MY BROOCHES

MY BRACELETS

BLUES IMITATION AGATE SMALL FREE FORM NECKLACES

I really hope you have enjoyed my new jewelry lines. I have really enjoyed making each and everyone. I especially love making these imitated stones.

The beetles with the flowers look like they crawled under the flower to hide. But you can still see them. So this is a more subtle look along with the small charm beetles.

I really feel I got this line and cohesive look thing down. I have some sub-lines which can go further and end up to be their own line. I have tried to give choices in styles, colors, sizes, and finishes.

THE ACCESSORY ITEM ARE HAND MADE 3″ RING DISHES ,,,

Thank you for visiting my blog and supporting me in this new venture of creating a jewelry line. I am very excited to grow my jewelry business. Will be posting these new jewelry pieces. Price ranges will be $15.oo to $55.00. They will also make great gift ideas for graduation,s birthdays, anniversary, Mother’s Day and more…. Please visit my Etsy shop : at

First of all I needed a theme to get started. As I mentioned in my first Blog Hop it would be for the love of beetles and rocks which brought back childhood memories. This is what happened next…….

Making of the Beetle Bodies…….

I needed to make the beetle bodies for my new line. I was making imitation agates and turquoise from polymer clay. A technique I learned from Tory Hughes.

This was the most time consuming part of the whole line. I love these two technique and I have been given permission from Tory Hughes to teach the turquoise technique at B’Sue Boutiques Weekend Workshop Retreat May 15th – 18th. It will be lots of fun!

Decision Time…….

As each beetle is unique, I needed to make a decision as to which body went with which colored beetle and leaf. Here are some samples ,,,,,

This was my process and no they did not all stay this way. Beetles were changed and moved several times before I was happy with the look and style. My line consists of Necklace, ring, brooch, bracelet, and earrings. I went through this thought process with each design.

In the past 3 weeks I have been very busy building my new jewelry line. I am excited to say it is the cutest line I have ever made. It flows with the pastel colors of the season; Spring and Summer. These are my favorite colors. I have a fun time making this line as it is pretty, adorable, gorgeous, whimsical. and lovely. Take a look at some of the latest pictures of my new line.

The making of the faux agates that I used in my bug bodies. It takes several steps to make these bodies. The pictures show below one of the first stages is making the layers of the agates, then turning them into layered canes . Now I can make the cabochons.

I sand and buff each cabochon to bring out a shine resembling tumbled rocks. I love making these as no two are a like. When I start to buff them I get so excited on how you can look through and see the layers like a real stone. Then I decide which one will make a cool bug body.

Just look at the shine and the depth. It is so cool.! This was my new year challenge to get a great shine on my polymer, and I DID IT!

My first Love Beetle Rocks turned out great in pink. I decided to use leaves in my design to depict the wings of the beetles. So through out my line you will see leaves, pearls and flowers.

I made green, blue, pink in two shades, marsala, purple, turquoise, and scrap beetle bodies.

Picture below show how I decide on how I want the necklaces to look. Deciding which bug looks good in their body and with their leaf and flower is serious Beetle business.

Of course, this is not the final look for these beetles.

This is how five new necklaces look like for my new line.

Then decided on another look using the leaves a different direction. Below are 4 necklaces with a different twist.

I also wanted my line to have different size beetles so I expanded my line to include a smaller beetle stamping. I am still using my faux stones, leaves, pearls, and flowers. Still striving to keep my new line cohesive. I believe I have accomplished this with my line.

Made from my faux agates on the luscious silverware finish, which is of the highest quality and simply gorgeous. Notice the little silver beetles. Just a hint of Whimsy in these necklaces.

I hope you can tell that I have been seriously thinking about this new line and having fun with the whole design.

NEXT UP …… BRACELETS AS A PART OF “THE LOVE BEETLE ROCKS!”

I am using faux turquoise with Rosy Copper finishes. WOWSER! These bracelets ROCK with faux agates and scrap polymer.

The green and pink agates are with a brass ox finish.

Now you have seen 2 parts of my line of 5

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME MORE

Bring on the earrings. They are still in the making but I wanted to show a sneak peak

I am also working on Brooches and Rings which will conclude my new line. But you will have to wait till March 20th when I reveal my complete new jewelry line. But I will tell you this has been a blast and I even have extended my line out into two more lines that all tie into this line. Will share those pieces between now and March 2oth. So stay tuned….. Thank you for your comments and visiting my blog.

What I have Learned about me…..

This challenge has opened up my creativity to the point that I have my own style that can be recognized by others as my look. I have been able to combine my love of polymer and vintage inspired jewelry. Keeping my flowers and adding the whimsy of the beetles helped me take my line into sub-lines. Something I have been able to accomplish and will share my thoughts and process of these lines before the final blog hop. Interesting that my beetle line has another focus which is my faux polymer stones. The turquoise looks very real and love the technique I learned from a class with Tory Hughes. Tory also taught me the technique for faux agates. The technique has opened up all kinds of possibilities to use with my jewelry line. So I am including the faux stones as much as possible. I included the flower beetles for the women that just wants a little beetle showing. They look like they are in the garden of flowers and are not the focus but adds to the whimsy of the line.

I feel the women who wears my jewelry loves color and are confident to wear whimsical jewelry. They want to make their own statement which will invoke conversation. They love artisan jewelry because it is something you don’t see everywhere.

Finally, I want to thank B’Sue Boutiques for the master class. I am learning more and more everyday from Brenda and the others in the group. This has been a great thought provoking class. I feel like I have already won and will take this experience to the next level. I am more focused and have a direction. Learning the history of jewelry designs and famous designers makes me more knowledgeable and I can educate others. Learning that the finishes I use are important and are high quality US made finishes making my jewelry more desirable shows that I care about my customers.

I must say there are a lot of talented people in this group. Some of the jewelry focal’s that I’ve been seeing just lately are just beautiful. The designs the flowers the other bugs and the colors are awesome. I feel very honored to be in this group working with all of you and thank you Brenda for your leadership.

I want to see more pictures, I love pictures. My dad said I couldn’t read a book elicit had pictures. I guess that means I’m a visual learner. And right now I am thrilled with how my a get some my turquoise and my faux stones are turning out.

In part of my creativity with my bugs is finding the right body for each bug. You would think that any old faux stone would look good, that’s not the case. I am actually looking at each stoned in trying to find the right body for each bug. So know when you see my bugs there was a lot of thought put into how I wanted them to look. I feel like I am dressing my bugs.

So today I went through all my boxes and looked for all the leaves that I could find in all of my bezels and now they’re all grouped together in little containers so I can find them easier.

I just want to share a little bit of what I’m doing today and admiring all of your work and how you inspire me with my bugs. Some of the newer bugs are going to have cane work is bodies and that’s can create a whole new challenge because I’ll have to decide again what body with which bug.

I’m sorry I talk more when I use my Dragon speak software I can say more, take care and have a great weekend.

My love for rocks began as a child while camping with my family. My dad would take me to the creek beds to look for rocks. I always looked for the ones that sparkled. Mostly quartz and granite rocks. I had a Little Rock book that we would check to see what kind of rocks we found.

My dad always wanted to see what the inside of the rock looked like.. He used a rock hammer to crack open the rocks. Sometimes we would be surprised and other times it looked just like the outside of the rock.

As I got older whenever I went camping I always wantanded to look for rocks. One camping trip in Montana and Wyoming I collected several rocks of: granite, slate, quartz, some unknown rocks that were just pretty. However these were not small tiny rocks, these were if I could lift it I could take it home. The only problem is it weighed down the pickup truck and used up a lot more gas to where we rolled in on fumes when we got home.

Two years ago we took another family trip to Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming and guess what? I brought home more rocks. Only this time I bought them from a rock shop because they were glistening in the sun and so beautiful. Last summer I tried using them as jewelry displays, that didn’t work too well as the customers wanted to buy the rocks and I was trying to sell jewelry. So I have the rocks here at home and sometimes use them for photographs.

So from my love of insects and my love of rocks the jewelry line came to be “The Love Beetle Rocks!”

The new part of my line is three inch ring bowls. There are several steps to this process to make bowls. The first part is to condition the clay and make your three layers of clay in the design of your choice. I chose to make these first seven bowls with my scrap clay.

The next step, is to bake the bowls on their mold for half an hour. Now I can sand and buff the bowls. Once this step is done then I can think about the feet. That will be the next surprise as to what I make

Ring Bowls after first bake. Time foe sanding and buffing then I can add the feet.

I have added to my Aqua copper line with some faux turquoise I made with polymer. It looks like the real thing too. The next look to my line are Brooches. I have only made a few, but in my research of fashion is brooches are on the come back. First one, a cute butterfly and the second, has charms, leaf branch, owl, a square design all in Aqua Copper finishes. The STAR of each brooch is the Handmade Faux Turquoise I made.

Hang in there I am making the “LOVE BEETLE ROCKS! line. This is just a tease..